


The Fire's in Me

by Umbreon_ly



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Action/intense scenes of putting out fires, Clack, Kissing, Life or Death Situation, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of monster killing, Mentions of trains, Overprotective Zack Fair, Protective Zack Fair, Realizing romantic feelings, Romance, Search and Rescue, Sort Of, Surprise Kissing, Suspense, Zack calls Cloud Baby and thinks nothing of it until there is a, sue me, zakkura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24604225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbreon_ly/pseuds/Umbreon_ly
Summary: After leaving for a routine Shinra mission, Second Class SOLDIER Zack Fair is called back to base unexpectedly. A fire has spread over the entire base and his best friend Cadet Strife is missing. Zack bolts home to quell the flames, and more importantly, find Cloud.Written because I wanted to see an intense scene of Zack searching for Cloud in the aftermath of a huge fire, freaking out when he DOESN'T find him and then when he DOES. Enjoy 7k of that.
Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 16
Kudos: 182





	The Fire's in Me

**Author's Note:**

> I came into this fandom via the Remake and did not expect it to consume my life as it did. As such I imagined, for the most part, Remake appearances and "graphics" as I wrote this, including Cloud Strife's goddamn BEAUTIFUL FACE. 
> 
> However, I know some OG spoilers and have seen enough Zack content on tumblr to like him and want to write something for him. Did my best with the other CC characters besides. So if the story and characters feel half-blind in this, it's because they are.

The departure date was a Monday. On Sunday night the commander told him, “Did you say goodbye to your son?” and he wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not, but Zack made it into one.

“I’m going to tell him no parties in the barracks or he’s grounded,” he replied easily.

“Someone better have a party when we’re all gone,” Genesis chuckled. “I might come back a day early and sneak in. Get some shitheads in trouble. Get them out of trouble.”

“You will not,” came Angeal’s disembodied voice from behind a wall.

Genesis lifted a dusty art history book he hadn’t touched in weeks and banged its spine on the wall. Too loud for the little closet-like room he shouted, “Yes! I! Will! I’ll even invite you!”

“Zack, if you want to say bye to your cadet friend, now’s the time. There’s a briefing at 1900,” said the faceless voice. Its owner then appeared from around the corner, tools in hand and a frown on his face. “which you will be speaking at, commander.”

“Huh? Wasn’t told I had to brief,” he grumbled back. “How many are going with us again? What size audience?” 

“Rehearse your lines while I’m gone!” Zack called, and dipped out of the room. He left the two Firsts to an argument that sounded like a familiar joke, like neither one of them cared to be angry on this lazy Sunday, which in turn left him pleased and energized. It left him free to shed the conversation and look ahead to an even better one.

He made for the shooting range halfway across base where cadets performed scheduled target practice. The sun would be going down soon. There wouldn’t be much time at all for a cadet to talk to him between rounds, but he would and he must. It was important to lay eyes on Cloud before a mission departure and Cloud knew to expect him by now.

At 1815 on Sunday night, he turned on the path around the corner of a storage building and heard the telltale jetting spark sounds of controlled gunfire. Zack’s easy jog slowed to an easier walk. He entered the building without need of a keycard and waved hello to the entry clerk before she stood up to acknowledge him. The gunfire kept going, going, going till the footfalls of his boots were drowned out. He entered the main hall of the range. There a long row of cadets in regular Shinra gear stood in even little stalls, shooting down moving and unmoving targets.

None of the cadets heard him coming. He leaned against a pole, waiting for the round to end and for the gutted wooden targets to cycle through to new ones. The ones today were shaped like little behemoths. He disregarded them and looked down the long line of shooters, searching for his. One helmet near the left side of the range drew his eye, the way it always did. It made him sigh to see it. Patiently, he watched and waited.

As the peppering sounds were lessening, that helmet Zack had pinpointed lifted up and turned around like a rabbit spying through grass. It was a little shorter than its neighbor, still and cautious, with a barely parted little mouth.

“Cloud! Come here when you’re done!” he called down at him with a wave.

Some cadets looked, some nodded an acknowledgement to a senior officer, some didn’t bother anymore. Cloud himself, faceless now, nodded after a little delay where he must have been processing some surprise or joy at seeing him. Then he melted back into his platoon, one of many hunched-over bodies blasting a hole in a behemoth’s sternum. His shot landed, then missed, then landed and landed and then hit another man’s target.

“You took my chest shot!” the neighboring cadet spat over the little partition wall. There was a reply, but too quiet to carry up to the back of the gallery where Zack observed. “Stay in your own damn lane or I’ll take your points, too!” the man added, and Zack felt less patient.

The practice ran five minutes over, a consequence by the drill sergeant after too many poor shots by Cadet Strife and a handful of others. The guns bled momentarily red as they fired. _Flash, flash, flash._ The wooden behemoths shattered and their pieces clattered.

“At ease,” called the sergeant after too many minutes. “Disengage and clean. And helmets off.”

Each cadet began a routine inspection and cleaning of his weapon before setting it down, and some helmets began to come off. Hair colors and moving eyes started to color the row. Cadet Strife’s hair was pale gold and thick and it was too far away. Zack whistled down at him to call his attention.

Cloud gave it immediately. He skirted out of his stall without his weapon, making his way down the line of stalls and towards the stairs. Zack descended from the top to meet him in the middle, starting quick then slowing. He looked downward at Cloud’s muddied uniform and his comparatively untouched hair. Cloud walked like he was a little nervous about where he was going, but he often did. Yet he also he maintained eye contact all the way since he was slowly turning into a little braveheart.

His friend stopped when there was one stair between them. Zack stepped swiftly down so they stood on the same one. Standing on the same level, he still looked a little down, but more than a little happy. 

“Hey, baby,” he said.

“Hi?” Cloud said back, blinking so that his eyes made little blue flashes.

Zack ran his fingers up and down the forearm with the most dirt smeared on it. “Did they have you guys playing in dirt today? Or wait, I heard there’s a rat infestation in some town with a quarry near here. Bet they sent you for monster killing duty.”

“No. We were digging out a hill to make way for a road that town wants to make. Officer Chen thought they should just blow it up, but they can’t, I guess. So we dug.”

“You were shoveling all day?”

“Pick-axing. S’like chopping wood, sorta. I can do that.”

“And hell of an exercise on the muscles. Or strain on the back? Or both. Your biceps are gonna get big, you know.”

“They _are_ bigger than when I joined,” Cloud replied in a whiny little way, and pouting. His face was suited for puppylike pouting. “And I found this, um, I don’t know. A neat rock. It’s tiger-striped. I don’t think it’s worth anything, but I mean…it looks nice.”

Behind Cloud and out of his view were multiple other cadets, wiping down their weapons and looking at the pair of them standing on the stairs. A few nearest the stairs looked on with some envy or distaste. Not every cadet had a SOLDIER friend, a superior officer friend. Shinra executives varied on how much that mattered, and Angeal and the others had been lenient to their relationship as long as he used the word _mentoring_ and wrote a report about it once in a while. There was one cadet ignoring them entirely in favor of shining her boots, two more walking out to the edge of the range to collect the scrap wood, and others out on the periphery of vision that Zack decided he didn’t care to look at.

Suddenly he noticed Cloud did have his helmet in one arm, pressed lightly against his hip. “Um, I was waiting for you to say you’re about to go on duty somewhere. But then I thought maybe I am.”

Zack wanted to touch something, so he rapped the helmet with his knuckles. “Not you, me. _I’m_ going on a temporary duty somewhere, and I’ll be gone for four days,” he confirmed, while Cloud nodded to himself. “All the Firsts’ll be gone, plus some senior cadets. Not a long trip, but a far one. I can’t tell you where. But we get to go on an airship.”

The drill sergeant was standing some steps below them, arms behind his back while facing them. At certain bases, with certain SOLDIERs, a direct address could backfire badly directly addressing a superior could backfire badly on him. Zack postured himself especially casually and asked, “Something you need? Am I in your way?”

The drill sergeant had some talent in keeping a straight face. “When your meeting is complete, my squadron will head out for the showers. Until then, we can stay here and continue firing practice if you desire, sir. Do not let us interrupt you, sir.”

“I’m not gonna get you latrine detail for walking past me,” Zack laughed at him, but the man’s stony face remained. “If you want to leave, I’m not stopping you. You’re free to move, sergeant.”

This last got a response, especially when Zack moved himself and nudged his mentee to keep them from blocking the whole stair. One of the cadets immediately jogged up the stairs past them, giving an apology as he went. Two others started up and Cloud shuffled closer to him, and to the wall. He met the eye of the fourth cadet to go up the stairs and saw the man’s scowl.

“That guy needs to unclench,” Zack remarked. It worked; Cloud sputtered with laughter, but only for a few seconds. “Is he pissed ‘cause of me?”

“Probably…I don’t talk to him much.”

“You know what to say if he talks to _you_.”

 _“Yes._ God. I’m not gonna get beat up by horrible cadet bullies or something.”

Not anymore, he thought, but it was a cautious and questioning thought. Cloud could have indeed fallen the day he visited the Seconds’ main building with heavy bruises on his collar and arms. He wasn’t always liked and he wasn’t always competent. But he was steadfast in trying. Something, something mountain-town, stone-like stubbornness, and sweetness underneath that.

“Wanna get dinner?” he asked spontaneously. “I mean, I already ate, and I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes…yeah, so, wanna walk to the cafeteria? I wanna hear about unearthing cool rocks. All I heard about today was field ration paperwork.”

Halfway through that long suggestion, Cloud was already darting his eyes a bit, not in any real direction except _away._ “Not today, actually. I have duty somewhere else, dunno what exactly, but I gotta be at the building materials storage…place. Building.”

“Man. These extra duties. You know what it means when guys start trusting you with special jobs, Cloud. Some of them have a little extra pay, too.”

“It’s nice to be useful,” he conceded, but quietly, like it was only a little bit nice.

Zack grabbed both his shoulders and shook them till Cloud sputtered again. He did have slightly thicker biceps than the twigs he came in with two years ago. “You better tell me about your secret jobs! And your rocks! When I get back. Oh yeah, yeah, and no parties.”

“What?” he gawked, head pulling back.

“Genesis said to say that,” Zack laughed. “No parties. And if you don’t go to the gym at least once in four days, I’m stealing your tiger rock.” Cloud conceded that, too, rather submissively. Or _dis_ missively. A lot of emotions flowed out of him then, for some reason. Cloud was quiet, but his face usually wasn’t.

He promised to be good. Zack felt satisfied and even charmed by the time they said a final goodbye, because Cloud ultimately seemed to be doing good today. Both of them had spent and ended the day well. Zack’s day ended after hearing Commander Rhapsodos give a eulogy for a trooper whom he was told had unfortunately transferred to a faraway base, but had actually not and was sitting nearby. Angeal told them both everything was set for the trip tomorrow and to be at the base gate by six.

At five-thirty that morning, Angeal arrived to greet all men and women going on the trip. At five-forty, Zack and Sephiroth arrived with opposite degrees of tiredness and the troops began to gather around them, awaiting instruction. At six-fifteen, Genesis arrived with a wrapped-up cafeteria pastry in hand and no apology of any sort. Angeal took it from him. 

“Head out!” Angeal called to them all, and they began the march to their undisclosed airship.

At seven, they arrived and boarded, and Genesis got his morning meal back. At ten, they landed. At four, the plans were made for an excursion to the valley where the adversaries were hiding: folks in colorful robes that bred behemoths and were fond of using them as steeds to invade and loot any village they could find.

On Tuesday morning, they set out. A party to the plains here, a party to the mines there, a Third Class’s trained falcon to the valley as recon, which came back magically Silenced and nearly dead. Minutes past midnight into Wednesday, a man leapt out of a tree screaming and pointing at them, and the behemoths came.

Early on Thursday, Zack helped turn over the beastmasters with chained-up hands to a local division of Shinra’s police force. The agent handling them allowed him to keep one of the claws that had come off one of the many dead beasts. It was yellow-orange and gold with several little black pockets throughout: not tiger-striped but almost leopard-spotted.

“I hope you haven’t absconded with company property,” Angeal said with a raised eyebrow.

“The agent let me have it!” Zack protested. He reached over to show off the thing to his mentor up close. “Lookit that, who knew behemoths have fancy colored claws, like they paint their nails. I thought maybe magic usage might affect the coloring, but their magic’s all in their horns, right?”

“Not these ones, stuffed up to their necks with materia. It does look nice.”

Zack leaned back over a fence near the train station, the most bustling piece of civilization for fifty miles in all directions. “This has been a good trip. Gen complimented some troopers. Sephiroth said thank you to someone and they didn’t flip out or run. I forget who that was. Damn, why did I forget?”

Their airship was not available for transport anymore, and the train would be a while yet. Angeal stood waiting, unbothered. He looked around to the general store across the dirt road, the post office and the doctor with a friendly advertisement hanging in his window. Citizens were walking around more now that there was no threat of ten-foot-tall monsters biting off their limbs and strangers demanding their valuables.

“This has been nice,” Angeal agreed. Zack watched him smile, then smiled too. “It’s not everyday you get to guarantee safety to the defenseless.” A man walked by with a pair of fire materia in hand, practically skipping with joy. Zack watched his mentor’s face carefully as he added, “I’m glad to be here.”

Zack felt gladness too, soaked in it for a bit. Their men loitered about the train station, chatting and reclining in shade and petting a stray cat. His last mission had involved a cult and a kidnapping, so a monster hunting, heavy striking with his sword, cutting down horrid enemies that deserved no recourse, was pleasant. Was deserved. 

At two, they boarded the train. Troopers who had been leisurely standing around switched to leisurely sitting and masking their intent to sleep through the trip. Genesis didn’t mask his intent and Angeal didn’t stop him. Zack looked out the nearest window, then wandered the car, and then the next car.

At five, he was talking to Thirds LaSalle and Noya and a Cadet Cristobal when his PHS went off. Behind him, he could just hear another one going off loudly in the neighboring car.

“Hello, Second-class Fair!” he answered gaily, while LaSalle was still laughing at something he’d said before.

At five-eleven, the PHS then blasted, _“Class-A Fire at Station C12. Class -A Fire at Station C12. All hands are to return to base for search and rescue. Class-A fire at Station C12—”_

LaSalle was still laughing. “Hey, did it say the base is on fire? Class A, like the entire—?”

Second-class Fair pivoted and tore through the two doors and patch of open, rushing air separating his car from the next. Angeal was already up but still had his device pressed to his ear. “It was in Building Materials Storage and now it’s everywhere. Even the dorms. For almost an hour! How could—”

“We have to go! How much longer till we’re there?”

“Five minutes if we run,” Sephiroth said from beside him. His face was stern, a First-class now on duty. “The train’s going to circle around the town before getting to the station. We can jump off and run straight there, arrive faster. Come.”

“Jump off?” Angeal balked, but the address was to Zack, who was running to open a window. Angeal settled for the next best arrangement. “I’ll tell the other Seconds. Halladay will be in charge and lead them on foot once the train arrives. Let’s go!”

Zack went first and Angeal last. They ran on dry, arid ground, then a plain with dry yellow grass, then past the growing industrial town that hosted Shinra Station C12. The strain was menial on their lungs and legs. The majority of it was in Zack Fair’s heart, clenching tight like a boa upon soft prey. The softest prey of all was gentle Cloud Strife, whom he needed to lay eyes or—or something unthinkable.

SOLDIER training kept his breath and his mind even, or close to. The flames were in sight before the main gate was. The sun would be setting soon and the fire was sending a glow up into the sky as though to replace the fleeing sun. The highest flames were on the roofs, or standing on the ground but reaching equally high, like slowly waving orange serpents. They could be magically made, or made with materia, or gas, or chemicals, or the charred bits of human skin caught up in it.

“Oh god, oh god—”

“How did it get this bad? The message didn’t even say how it started!” Genesis shouted from his left. They were within sight of the gate.

How was there no blond-haired individual standing at that gate? How were there administrators with suits and paper coffee cups standing safe by the firetruck but no uniformed troopers he recognized? Where was Cloud?

There were Thirds just beyond the gate holding ice materia to trap and evaporate the towers of fire, and cadets manning a hose to smother any other flames. But there were a dozen fires more past them.

“Weaponry first,” Angeal called to them all.

The weaponry storage was within sight of the gate and it had Thirds with more ice materia already manning it. In his mind, he apologized for Angeal for the direct disobedience he was planning.

The four of them crossed the gate at the same time and were hit by a heavy wave of heat that blew angrily at their hair and clothes. It briefly stole Zack’s breath away, but he spat and choked and rallied himself. Sephiroth went to Weapons and the other two disappeared out of sight. Zack ran forward, chasing his need.

The dorms where cadets and troopers lived were along the main base road. He ran. Sprinted. He whipped his head about like a wild man, looking for familiar faces running by. For some reason he felt compelled to look for anyone running around with a pick-axe.

“—fully evacuated! Go!” shouted a helmeted trooper by the first dorm. He was pointing half-dressed troopers to a site without fire to gather by some ice materia holders. He became the target. He saw Zack coming and jumped when he stopped inches from him, gripping the tops of his shoulders.

“The dorms are evacuated? You’re sure?” he shouted.

“B-Buildings 1 and 2 clear! Sir! We just sent in drones! I don’t know about Building 3.”

Zack hadn’t blinked yet. “Is Cadet Strife accounted for?”

“Who?”

Zack threw the man to the side and he bounced ungainly off the wall, but he had already taken off running again. He ran to the last dorm building, still with residents running out, and used his sword to break a wider hole in the concrete doorway. He jumped on rubble and pulled himself up a pipe into an open window on the second floor. With a second swing and crash of concrete, he made a regular sized window now wide enough to drive a car through. Second floor residents and troopers ran by in the hall, but none of them were his.

“I’m looking for my cadet—” But so many didn’t know his name, and the ones that did hadn’t seen him before the fire, or during. 

The training barracks and the new half-built one were confirmed empty. The shooting range had a drill sergeant trapped inside and he pulled her out and gave her to medics. As his search and rescue and damage control kept going, he kept looking. The boa remained wrapped tight around his heart.

 _Hey ya, little braveheart,_ he said once when he witnessed Cloud standing up for himself in front of a man who could have lifted and thrown him. He’d waited till any other witnesses were out of sight to say it, because it was cutesy, and Cloud was still bashful. There was no reason to think of that now except that it was a good memory and a good thing between them, and he must believe that more good things would follow.

Zack gritted his teeth and lifted a collapsed piece of concrete nearly his own height, and Cloud’s dead and burned body was not underneath it.

He kept running, moving, carrying, sweating. The towers of fire and their too-bright glow were lessening. At least one could tell night had fallen.

He did not think coherent thoughts anymore. He performed some functions: taking an ice materia when given one and using it to the fullest he could manage: the fire eating the entire east side of the food storage building disintegrated with his Blizzaga. Bits of ice and water fell onto him and the troopers and firehoses nearby. One of them offered a rag to wipe his face. It was Halladay, who led the group from the train, but led no more. He followed Zack around the main square instead.

He couldn’t stand to keep in one spot attending to reports and listening for roll call names with his heart in his throat. He paced. He grabbed at Sephiroth’s arm when he passed and let it go with half an apology. He grabbed at an outstretched pipe and ran his hands along a fallen mech. He wanted to move and wanted to _touch_ but nothing was right. Nothing was a blond head of hair, he was nowhere, Zack Fair’s head and heart were nowhere.

“Get your fucking head on straight,” Genesis said, walking by him. “Sincerely, Angeal. He didn’t say ‘fucking’ though. He did say to take a break, so you better.”

“A break? It’s barely been like half an hour. I’m not taking a break.”

“We got here two hours ago.”

“Shit.” He decided that didn’t matter, and added breathlessly, “Cloud’s still missing. Almost all the buildings are evacuated and he’s _missing._ ”

His voice or his face gave Genesis pause. “Then go with search and rescue. They’re searching the base by quadrants. Pick one.”

Cadet Strife was missing in action. Cadet Strife had disappeared. Zack looked up again, just in case he was coming down the street or working with the medics carrying victims. The motion even felt Cloud-like. Fretful. Muted. Sometimes Cloud looked around for him in a crowd just like this. And there were crowds scattered all around right now. 

Zack took in a long breath. It was his duty to be steady and strong. To continue being such. The honor of being a SOLDIER was pulling dozens of eyes in those crowds to him right now. He must address them. He thanked Halladay, still at his heels, and led him elsewhere to a new quadrant. Search and rescue followed where he led.

The team went to the training barracks where smoke was drifting out the broken windows and he pulled the back door off with his hands. _Let me find you._

He searched the basement with Noya and Cristobal from the train and four troopers he vaguely recognized. Cloud’s own rank, maybe his resident hall neighbors. None of them found him, or anyone. _Come out, Spike. Come out._

He ran down curved side roads and half-paved paths where the delivery men would drive supply and food trucks and no one and nothing was there but burned grass. _Cloud you are fucking grounded when I find you._

_Come out right now or I’ll shave your head and take a photo and send it to your mom._

_Please be in the break room—_

_Please be okay, Cloud, please lemme find you please—_

_Why won’t you let me find you?_

_Where!_ Are! You!

The scream in his head broke out so that he finally screamed aloud, too. LaSalle leaped back out of the way when the swing of the Buster Sword arced high enough to pulverize a ceiling and fling its pieces and rubble down to the street below. He had exposed the sky and all the dark corners of this wide room and all its rubble, and nothing was here.

“Sir,” said one of the Thirds, probably LaSalle.

Zack was hunched over his sword, blade point on the ground, his arms in view now ash-stained and shaking. The resolve of a SOLDIER was weaker now, with a new tightening of his heart. It hurt.

“No,” he called back to the Third in a strange tone.

The night could not end this way. This friendship he treasured so would not end with a silent, unknown goodbye. As though some accident took precedent over his life, and his home, instead of himself or his men or his will. As though taking a boy under his wing until he was a man, and then after, could be worth nothing and end in nothing.

Zack Fair saw little flashes of blinking blue. _Hi?_ He heard in his mind, and he wanted to whine.

He did want to apologize first, but LaSalle surely expected already. Zack knew to put the sword away on its magnet first. Once it was on his back, he ran forward and slammed his hands onto the hanging half of a door and broken portion of a wall that stood in his way. He gripped the largest piece of each and lifted them away and threw them. The crash hurt his ears. It rattled the far wall.

“Sir, w-we can—” But another soul shut him up and made him back away.

“ _Please_!” Zack shouted to Cloud.

 _Hi,_ he heard in an echo of that tough, lovely voice and he wanted to sprint around the world and scream. Zack found the next-nearest pile of scrap and rubble and began to rip it open, because like hell he would have to _miss_ him and not have him. He didn’t become a SOLDIER for that. He would undo every one of these piles of wreckage to lay them flat and visible, he was certain. He began to pull open another one, heaving up the remains of a desk and pushing it over with one hand.

The desk struck a concrete slab, which fell a short way against a wall, exposing another pile. Zack ran to it and pulled at the slab to force it to the right, then at a smaller slab, and then he looked through three bent beams of steel. 

Behind them was a moving body with blonde hair. _Flash, flash, flash_ went the vivid blue eyes as they blinked.

 _Hi,_ the beauty sounded daintily at him, not because Zack was being greeted or talked to, but because Cloud was gasping aloud in pain.

Zack’s scream became a helpless moan as he moved concrete with his hands again, but he didn’t blink, or break eye contact, or stop his destructive path. The piece of concrete was rolled away. Cloud was behind it. The three steel beams were left. Cloud lay behind them on a pile of broken wood, dust and torn fabrics. He was panting and bleeding and dirty.

The three beams were thrown out the nonexistent ceiling and one through the broken-open window. _Blue, blue, blue_ eyes. They were huge and frightened. He was doused soundly with soot and his limbs were torn and bleeding. But at least his hands were lively; they twitched and gripped the rubble behind him. Truly all of him was lively, because he was still aware and alive and right fucking there. 

The second after the beams were out of his way he surged forward while shouting “CLOUD!” and descended on him.

Zack embraced him with barely a regard for wounds. He shuddered at the touch of Cloud’s body, feeling him breathe under his clothes. The moan further devolved into gasps and then to saying his name. Whatever had been cracking in him while he’d torn up the room gave way and he could finally breathe.

His gloved hands shot up to Cloud’s face and descended on him further. Cloud was held in place while Zack lowered himself to kiss the blond on the lips, then the corner of his mouth, and his cheek and his brow. He paused once to breathe and saw a split second of the face under the dirty blonde hair lighting up with surprise and life. Red cheeks, too. 

“Baby, you’re all right,” he gasped. “I’ve got you.”

“What?” was all Cloud said in response, funnily high-pitched. So sweet. So full of emotion, poorly disguised at that, the way he should be. So fucking good to see him.

Instead of talking more, Zack kissed him again to feel his skin and his life. Forehead first, feeling that precious hair softly touch the edge of his mouth. His own lips were a little chapped but Cloud’s weren’t. Nice and soft. Soft cheeks, even if he got a little ash in his mouth to touch his lips to them. He wanted to bow low to the dip of his neck and shoulder, but he noticed Cloud was almost falling over. He tightened up his loose and joyous grip to keep him from falling. Something near Cloud did fall, perhaps out from his pocket or the rubble but he did not give a shit what it was.

“I looked for you,” Zack told him. “For hours. I really thought you were dead.”

“…Sorry,” Cloud said in a gasping breath. But he was avoiding Zack’s eyes and blushing like he was very embarrassed about something. “I, um…I’m fine. Fine. Thanks.”

“You’re not fine, you were clearly on fire recently,” he replied, smiling. That smile was zapped away. When he gasped, Cloud tensed up in anticipation. “And, and your stomach, your chest? You were hurting before, what happened?”

He started feeling tentatively around the cadet’s torso, where there was a lot of ash but almost no blood. Cloud squeaked when Zack’s fingers brushed at an area just below his ribs on the left side. “There, you’re bruised there, aren’t you? Maybe worse.”

To be thorough for his safety, Zack felt the exposed skin on the cadet’s torn off sleeve and the huge gap in his pant leg. Those places had soot, singed flesh, open gashes. He had fallen, or or maybe crashed against a serrated edge, and then ran through flames. Cloud would do all of those things.

Zack was showing his teeth in a great big smile that Cloud still avoided. “Come here, baby. Come on.”

Cloud squeaked again and so he was even more careful. Zack moved to gather up the cadet in his arms, who was limp and unresistant to the movement, thankfully. Once he stood up and watched Cloud cough once, twice, dart his eyes unsurely around, his heart palpitations finally had soothed to a normal beat. The strangling feeling was gone now that he held Cloud in his own arms again. And he would not be allowed out of his sight for a long while more. Not after spending days and then harrowing hours out of it.

“You good? Nothing else hurts?” There had been no more _hi_ -like gasps of pain. “You better tell me if it does.”

By now, he’d turned around from the rubble pile where Cloud had lain and begun walking across the room slowly. Burnt wood and glass rattled under his feet. He heard a piece of glass fall, but it was behind them now and he no longer cared for collateral damage. He did not look away from his found prize. The other Thirds and troopers had gathered together by the door. They openly stared in amazement.

Cloud’s arm had been more or less forced up Zack’s shoulder when he picked him up. That bare hand was twitching and fussing at the top of Zack’s spine, like it feared to touch or land in one spot there.

“Not hurt bad. M’fine.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he said, but it was too forceful. It must be the last forceful thing he said. Zack tried again, coaxing, “You had me real upset and I really don’t want to be even more upset. What happened to you? How the hell’d you avoid search and rescue this long?”

He was nearly at the doorway where the lot of his men were loitering and gaping. The gaggle of wide eyes in mostly ashy, sweaty faces stood out enough that he looked up at them. Noya and Cristobal made the threshold too narrow to cross while carrying a person in his arms.

“Noya, Cadet Cristobal. Move, please.”

They did, and two others disappeared into the ether, out of the way somewhere, it didn’t matter where right now. Another one averted his eyes from the scene entirely and looked up at the night sky through the nonexistent ceiling of the destroyed room.

“C’mon, Cloud, how are you?” Zack tried again. The man in his arms had hardly moved. His left arm hung limply out while the other still twitched unsurely by Zack’s neck. “I’m gonna keep asking, this is serious.”

“I, I didn’t do anything, I swear,” Cloud murmured quietly.

“Nah, you didn’t. You’re fine, you’re with me,” he soothed back. It didn’t sound quite right, not exactly the right response, but he could hardly pay attention. Cloud’s eyes went _flash, flash._ His breath made his body just barely move against Zack’s so that he felt him, being alive. He _felt_ that life, and he loved the sight of that blond hair.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he said in a happy exhale.

He flexed his right arm just a little to raise the top of Cloud’s body and bring his head closer. He kissed him on the forehead this time, slower. He’d never kissed Cloud on the forehead before. Or the lips, actually. Or on the lips twice. He could have though, and he had wanted to. It’s just something Cloud probably wouldn’t appreciate in public, like cutesy names. Like—

“I just realized I didn’t even ask.” Zack stated.

“Fine. S’fine,” Cloud said, a little too high-pitched and still avoiding his eyes. Cloud _also_ knew that Zack had never kissed him on the lips before.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just really wanted to. Felt so happy. I wanted to do that for a while, but I should have—”

“Yep. Fine.”

“Cloud, you need to tell me if that was okay. Was it?”

“It’s here, the stretcher’s here!” answered some trooper he didn’t know. Two cadets in overall clean uniforms had rushed up the stairs carrying a canvas stretcher between them. They positioned themselves to receive Cloud like an injured patient. “Sir, we can place Cadet Strife here and we’ll take him to the medics ourselves, Lin and Anderson and me!” The trooper sounded very proud of this task. As though he would be happy to remove Cloud Strife from the place Zack had spent hours trying to get him to.

A few more moments of inaction passed. Zack ended them. “No stretcher. I’m carrying him.”

“But you don’t have to, sir, we can take care of that for you.”

“You will not take him,” he said a little more firmly, and the cadet who’d announced the stretcher actually took note of that tone.

“Zack?” Cloud said unsurely from below him. It drew his attention away. He was about to respond when Cristobal stepped forward.

“I have triage experience, sir, I can help.”

“I said no.” This time his voice echoed. Third-class LaSalle grasped Cristobal’s shoulder guard and yanked him backwards. He made some hand motions that would have been used on a battlefield which sent the stretcher-bearers on a fast retreat. Zack walked in the same direction they’d gone, now with no more troopers in his way.

“Cristobal used to be a nurse. And they’re just doing their jobs,” Cloud muttered when they were hardly ten steps along.

It made him smile to hear that pouting. “I know,” he replied. He didn’t justify himself more than that. “You gonna answer me or am I gonna drop you down the stairs?”

The smile spread to Cloud, but only for a moment. Zack watched him. He took a bit longer to start talking, and what he started was: “You called me ‘baby.’ Before. A couple times.”

That was definitely true. He thought back on it in terms of an accident, and it felt nonsensical to frame it as such. That name was just for him. It was so easy to call him that. It was right. Everything he was feeling, physically in his arms or in the faint tingling on his own lips, and the calm inside him, devoid of that constricting feeling on his heart, was just right.

“Yeah. I wanted to. It’s not an accident, Cloud. Promise you that.”

“You just kissed me on the mouth.”

“Yes.”

He stopped walking there because it was important to look at him now and at nothing else. Cloud’s face was turning a little red and he was avoiding eye contact again. He was seeking assurance and answers from something, so Zack drew his attention again and gave it. “Tell me if you want me to do it again. I will. I’ll do it till your cute blushing face turns totally red. I’d like to kiss you with your mouth open. I’d really like to.”

He made a _hi_ -like squeak again. “Don’t mess with me, it’s not funny. If you’re joking, it’s not funny.”

“It’s not funny I had to wonder if you were dead tonight.”

“I know. I’m so sorry to worry you.”

“Not messing around.”

“…Okay.”

"Yeah? You're certain?" 

"Mm-hmm. You can...keep doing it." 

“Tell me what happened to you or I’ll kiss you again, Cloud Strife. And you can’t hide under rocks anymore.”

Zack’s eyes had been trained on Cloud’s fluttering, sweet face all this time, so he now watched Cloud exhaled a little laugh that spurred a little smile onto his face. It swept the hurt and pain out of him. It bloomed inside his chest like Cloud’s emotions were physically there, lighting more unexpected fires.

He stopped trying to be excessively gentle and pulled back to a mostly regular level of gentle. Enough that when he leaned down to kiss Cloud’s soft cheek again, Cloud’s head was only barely pushed back. The second time he aimed for the corner of the mouth to see if it would make him shocked, or happy, or even more bashful. When Cloud showed that he was bashful, it only made him want to eat all the bashful away and savor it and find other things underneath it. Cloud liked to hide things underneath things and pretend they were other things, and he did lots of other nonsensical rock-brained, mountain-town stuff that was so, so fun and good.

All that thought and gratitude took only a second for him to parse though, only the time it took to lean down and plant one more, slower kiss that could not be ignored or dodged. Cloud turned his head a little closer and kissed back. Their lips curved into the shape of the other’s. Then retreated.

Zack gave him a minute to test out that feeling. He stayed close in case he wanted to try it again. And he so wanted to try again. If he wanted that again, or anything _more_ than that, he felt ready for it. He gripped Cloud’s torso and thighs as though he was preparing to run away somewhere with him.

“Feel kinda like I’m on fire,” Zack mused.

“I got first-hand evidence that doesn’t feel good,” Cloud griped back.

“You feel good. Real good. I should carry you more places.”

“I think I can walk now, actually. Just maybe hold your shoulder—”

“Nah.” Zack kept walking. “Also, you’re grounded.”

“’Cause my party was too wild?” Cloud said back offhandedly. His expression warped past embarrassment and into horror.

It only made Zack smile more. “Totally!” They had stood on a landing for a while, with a mostly uninterrupted view of the lobby area and the little rec center that was the first floor. Now they walked down the stairs.

“We’re gonna have to lay down some new rules, obviously, plus I absolutely will steal your tiger-stripe rock because you deserve it, _but_ I have a new cool thing, it’s not a rock, it’s—hey!” He didn’t stop walking, just lifted his gaze ahead to see Angeal standing in the broken doorway of the building. He had in fact been there a good while, and so had another pair of troopers behind him. And Genesis was there.

“Ho-ly _shit_ ,” said the fiery Commander, arms crossed and fingers drumming. “I had this so wrong. Because I was distracted, probably.”

“I found him on the second floor,” Zack announced. He puffed out his chest a little, and stayed still, that his superiors might better see and appreciate what he’d spent so long searching for. “Minor injuries. I think. I’ll take him to the medics to be sure.”

“They came to him, actually,” Angeal said, and waved his arm to a new set of stretcher-bearers. These ones looked cleaner and a little more burdened with tools than the previous bunch. “Set him down, now. They’ll take him to the injury tent by the front gate.”

“No, I’ll take him.” Zack stated. He walked on. “Come on, baby, stay with me. Loads to talk about.”

“Baby,” Genesis hissed loudly, while grinning, while elbowing Angeal’s hip.

“I know, I know.”

Zack took him as he said he would and did not attempt to explain himself to anyone else. Halladay passed by and gave him a wide berth. Cloud actually looked back at him, but not for long. It was nearly midnight and only tiny embers remained of the great fire. Much electrical equipment had been torched or fallen down, so there were fewer artificial lights sticking up into the sky than usual. There were more stars out than usual.

Zack looked up at them, though not for long. He felt Cloud’s head drop lightly against his chest and rest there. He breathed in deeply, then out, and did not gasp in pain. He stayed where he was and Zack could hardly stop staring down at him, at rest here and now and with him.

“When I find out who’s responsible, there’s gonna be hell to pay, from me and the company both,” he whispered to himself. “I can probably move faster.”

Cloud sighed and hid his face a little more in Zack’s chest. He pressed against him so that his face and expression weren't visible anymore. In return, Zack held him a little closer. “Gotta sleep soon, baby.”

There was a little twitch of his mouth that he couldn’t help. “You too, right?”

“Yeah, both of us. Man, I’m filthy.”

“Same.”

They walked. The drill sergeant who had commanded Cloud’s group at the shooting range a whole week before appeared on the street. His eyes flicked up and down and around Zack and Cloud’s arrangement, confirming or at least absorbing what it meant. It could hardly mean anything else. Zack was not holding him like a rescue victim. And there was no need to pretend as such in front of anyone. He looked about for any other bystanders who were doing nothing and might possibly look at them both and immediately know.

“Don’t steal my tiger rock, I like it.”

“I’m stealing it.”

“Please? I’ll…I’ll kiss you.”

“Ssh,” he said instead. Talking was becoming tiring now. There had been days’ worth of exhaustion packed into this one night. He’d had enough of it. The heat of desperation and chaos was behind him. The fire was behind him and Cloud was here.

Zack walked them to the front gate and into the injury tent himself.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not good at writing short chapters or oneshots. I thought I could finish this in 4-5k, but it still ended longer than I planned. The last 2.5k was written in one go and feels a bit unsteady to me. Oh well, it was overall a shorter writing project than most things I do. If anyone has constructive criticism to give, I would appreciate it. I'm in fanfic culture because I love to write my favorite nonsense tropes and characters, just dressed up real nice. 
> 
> At this time of posting, June 7 2020, I don't have any other Clack fics to share but might in the future. This ship's obscenely cute. But I am a serial multishipper. 
> 
> Some things: 
> 
> -Cloud was the one who set the base on fire. I don't know exactly why. When Zack found him, Cloud was trying to hide/get rid of a fire materia in his pocket. He either stole some off the base itself or that man with two fire material mentioned in one SENTENCE on Zack's mission was involved in giving them to him. Unsure how long Cloud will continue to keep that hidden or how Zack will react to his friend's act of reckless endangerment. Felt weird making up half the information and withholding story details from MYSELF but I enjoyed the writing experience so whateva. 
> 
> \- One of my fave tropes in fanfiction is "possessiveness", idk it hits some button in me, and I feel I accidentally crossed from "protective Zack Fair" into "possessive Zack Fair" at times, somehow infusing a rather dark trait into the goodest of FF7 boys. I wonder how people will take this, or what it seems like while reading. 
> 
> \- CLOUD STRIFE'S BEAUTIFUL FACE. 
> 
> \- That's all. Thanks for reading.


End file.
